MFA 2019
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Most Accidents Occur in the Home: Stories(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2019-06-13) Bird, TracyMost Accidents Occur in the Home is a collection of a dozen loosely linked stories that focus on family life and the damage we do to those who are closest to us, intentionally and unintentionally. In a dark, realistic style, stories are, in turns, hopeless and hopeful, devastating and humorous. Links between stories are predominantly implicit and thematic, and include motherhood, gender, friendship, violence, money, obligation, the parent/child bond, revenge, and the power of love to heal. Recurring motifs, including dogs, music, and pop-culture references, strengthen the ties between the stories and anchor them in time and place. In settings as varied as the U.S./Mexico border, Salt Lake City, Utah, and the coast of Virginia, and ranging in time from 1944 to the present day, the characters in these stories grapple with violence and redemption, exile and homecoming, abandonment and forgiveness. In a long-term care facility, a character contemplates the right reasons to commit murder. A middle-aged woman weighs the burden of her mother’s declining health. A grandmother gifts her small granddaughter an image to strengthen and guide her in the future. A jealous mother callously teaches her child racism. An unthinking girl makes a decision that will change a friend’s life forever. Mothers commit acts of great selfishness and selfless love. Children navigate the world without guidance. Sibling bonds are non-existent. Parents come and go with casual disregard. Violence—both subtle and direct—suffuses all of these relationships and ultimately raises the question: What is the meaning of family?Item Sidereal Time(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2019-06-13) Buchanan, AaronSidereal Time is a novel in stories spread through time: from the defining moment with the church ceremony in 1985 until the initial character is brought back in the final chapter in 2019 to sew together earlier characters and events. The novel is as much about its rural Rustbelt location, St. Thomas County, Michigan, as it is about how its inhabitants deal with death, loss, nostalgia, and wonder. It is steeped in mysticism, fundamental Christianity, the occult; living oracles and foreboding omens. The characters, the place, and the magic explore time and place (space), and connect ancient figures in metaphorical and literal fashion—Marcus Aurelius’ blood, Saint Thomas Becket’s bone—to St. Tom County’s present. All of this while the Dog Star shines brightest in the summer sky.Item Diary of a Dead Girl: Thing, I Saw Before Becoming a Woman(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2019-06-13) Crespo, MichelleA selection of micro-fictions unveiling the truth of human nature through loss, abuse, secrecy, obsession, and the innate urge to kill.Item Care Tactics(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2019-06-13) Garisto, JulieThe essays in this collection represent memories and realizations preoccupying me during a pivotal decade in my mid-life, a period filled with loss, humility and change. Caring for my mother during her decline from mid-to late-stage dementia forced me to stay home for long stretches with time to think. The result: some pointed questions about my, our, jumble of priorities and need for self-care.Item Strong Like Willows When We Walk(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2019-06-13) Harris, Reva GailStrong Like Willows When We Walk is a collection of forty-five poems employing a variety of aesthetic techniques. These poems are intended to be accessible with rhymes, rich sounds, and imagery. The collection is comprised, mostly, of free verse poems; however, it includes poems written in traditional forms: sonnets, haiku, ghazal, villanelle, irregular ode, and sestina. Each poem seeks to convey a truth, or to draw as near to a truth as possible. This proximity to truth requires a lens through which one must be willing to examine everything from various angles. Principle themes in the collection include death, historical figures, relationships, abuse, and nature (human, animal, and plant). The poems capture the realism of unique life moments and occurrences, while, sometimes, embellishing and/or reimagining common stories, myths, and situations. This collection has a varied assortment of poems involving past, present, and future life experiences. Strong Like Willows When We Walk lifts up the reader with tales of grace, beauty, and wit; and, it drops the reader down low with narratives on death, loss, and betrayal, bending and flailing, without breaking the bough.Item Off Film(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2019-06-13) Lee, ChristopherItem Salt, Sand and Blood(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2019-06-13) Liddle, MarQueseSalt, Sand, and Blood, as presented in this thesis, is the first fragment of a fantasy epic following a vast cast of characters across country and continent. Protagonists Adam, Adnihilo, Jael, and Trey struggle to find their sense of autonomy and to align their moral paradigms with corrupted institutions and fabricated histories. It is this struggle which is narrated by the prophet Kashim, told in verse to his audience, the reader. Tying these characters and stories together is a single theme, the journey--or in other words, pilgrimage and the spiritual transformation which occurs when one is made to “leave his father’s tent”. The life paths inherited by each of the characters rapidly come into question or are otherwise destroyed, and all are tempted to embrace sublimation to ethnic ties, religious strictures, or vengeful plots. In these first twenty two chapters, the focus is this question: to sacrifice for the will of others, or to sacrifice for one’s potential self? In matters of craft, Salt, Sand, and Blood was born of such writing found in Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. That is, the manuscript combines the richness of worldbuilding and dramatic action with rhythm, rhyme, and alliteration to create the feel of a song or poem. It is an attempt to approximate the experience of an oral story or an epic poem, or something in between.Item No Nickel in That Dime(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2019-06-13) Morgan, NiaHow does the reality of our psyche shape the “reality” that we experience? A reality, let’s note, “which now includes 65% more sawdust/ 89% beef and 12% “signature recipe”:/ one-night stand behind the garbage/ paprika, torula yeast, and lactic acid. “How can I help you?” is the question, and “— cheese dip .75 plus tax” is the answer. Through the unconventional lens of game instructions, meeting notes, quizzes, and math equations, this collection of poetry explores mental illness, disability, sex, religion and race. Eccentric and calculated, No Nickel in That Dime seeks to remove the masks we wear every day and to reveal an authentic truth.Item Bastion of Rome(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2019-06-13) Morrison, ThomasA dying Rome needs heroes, lest invading barbarians sweep aside civilization and plunge the world into a thousand-year Dark Age. Five flawed members of a knightly religious order answer the call and enter Goth-occupied Belgica to save the oppressed. Along the way, they must contend with a dead wizard, an undead cat, an alcoholic talking dog, a cryptic death cult, an army of nihilist berserkers, a clan of thieves, hordes of barbarians, a collaborationist bard, a demonic mystic, a monstrous assassin squad, a fanatic but desperate Legion commander, an ultra-orthodox bishop, their own mortal shortcomings, and their trust in each other. Will Rome’s ruthless spymasters sacrifice them as pawns in a shadow war, or will their faith and unity enable them to master their own fates and save civilization? And who will recover the missing provincial treasury? In this debut novel, T. A. Morrison applies twenty years of real-world military experience to the realms of swords and sorcery and alternate history. This is not the story of the powerful decision-makers safe in their palaces, but the gritty realism of front-line combatants who volunteer to go into harm’s way for the sake of others, not always knowing their superiors’ ultimate goals. In a chaotic, multipolar world on the brink of ultimate collapse, this is a soldier’s tale of love and sacrifice, violence and morality, crudity and poignancy, sin and faith, family and brotherhood, victory and defeat.Item Dismount(The University of Tampa, 2019-01-03) Calderon, AramisDismount is a linked short story collection about five Marine veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom who returned to America, but never went home. Each character is on a road, weighed down by their combat load, and yet they march on. This work examines their lives antebellum, during a combat deployment overseas, and the time afterwards reintegrating into society after the Corps.Item Phosphoria(The University of Tampa, 2019-01-03) Phelps, MichaelPhosphoria is a short story collection consisting of nine stories with the common themes of alienation and marginalization, often but not always a product of the characters’ own efforts and ennui. The majority of the action in these stories happens in and around Mulberry, a small rural community in Central Florida with a depressed phosphate industry, low education standards, and a general sense of malaise, unconquerable and unchanging despite the buried desires of the characters. The actual community of Phosphoria was a small mining encampment located approximately seven miles from Mulberry, the evidence of which is still visible today. The area is very rural. The goal of the author was to write quiet, character-driven stories. Protagonists are usually given an opportunity to affect their circumstances through choice, and while they often justify their negative actions, there is usually an awareness of moral failure by the end of each narrative. While many of the subjects are of a dark or negative nature, it is his desire that, whenever possible, they be read as hopeful if not always positive. Hence the final story, intended as an optimistic (if wobbly) look into the future of one of the native sons of Mulberry. The author would like to express his deep appreciation to the residents of the town of Mulberry, several of whom were integral to the construction of this manuscript.Item The Malik Girls(The University of Tampa, 2019-01-03) Ramos, MelissaThe Malik Girls, a novel in progress, is a story where the protagonist inherits her ancestors’ home and is thrust into a town full of dark secrets, where the woods come alive, things move on their own, and no one can be trusted. Thea Malik discovers what it’s like to be an outsider in a small town, full of people who are not what they appear. Structure plays a big role in this novel, as we see her challenges in the present as well as memories from her past, interwoven together. In the process of her discoveries of who and what her family is, she grows as a person, becoming stronger, braver, and more secure. Her footing in the town changes slowly as she refuses to be bullied. This theme of being different with no acceptance from society plays heavily throughout the novel. The Malik Girls is a suspenseful tale, with psychological and supernatural elements, where the characters learn everything is not what it seems on the surface.Item Welcome Home(The University of Tampa, 2019-01-03) Tennis, JonathanWelcome Home is a collection of poems that explore the themes of family relationships, illness & disease, social justice and war. Attempting to answer the question of what it is like to come home when home has seemed so elusive in the past, this collection shows that it’s not all banners and hugs, flags and high-fives at the end of a deployment. There’s collateral damage in a lifetime spent overseas in combat zones. Surviving war turned out to be the easy part.Item Seeking Glory(The University of Tampa, 2019-01-03) Walsh, WilliamItem An Absurdity of Bodies(The University of Tampa, 2019-01-03) Whaley, KaylaIn this collection of essays, a young girl keeps discarded butterfly wings in a secret box in her desk. Prayer healers and medical researchers compete for a preteen's faith. A college student finds friendship and heartache in a toxic, sexually-charged quartet. And after acquiring a feeding tube, a young woman finds solace in learning the intimate rhythms of her stomach. Blending narrative essay, lyric essay, and micro-memoir, AN ABSURDITY OF BODIES explores the physical, emotional, and sensual realities of inhabiting a body and the processes by which we become acquainted with our own physical selves and those of others.